Species of vampire bats now prefer human blood—study
Some vampire bats have recently been discovered to be feeding on human blood, just like mythical vampires. File photo
Despite its cliched, horror-movie associations, vampire bats do not actually consume human blood and exclusively feast on birds’ plasma.
However, recent reports have confirmed what humans dread the most—that some of these wild creatures have been proven to include people’s blood in their diet.
According to the New York Post, some species of the winged-mammals, which are commonly found soaring across America, Mexico, Brazil and Argentina, have indeed been secretly sucking human blood.
Scientists at Federal University of Pernambuco in Recife, Brazil claim that a colony of hairy-legged vampire bats are the culprits, after tracing human DNA from 70 feces samples of these bats.
Enrico Bernard, the lead researcher from the university, said he and his team “were quite surprised” by their recent findings.
“This species isn’t adapted to feed on the blood of mammals,” he revealed.
The chilling revelation contradicts previous experiments on the air-gliding critters, which reflected that they would rather starve than eat any other mammal blood.
Bernard said that its no longer the case with these bats, who seemed to discover that human blood is thicker and higher in protein than the fatty bird plasma.
Aside from the obvious safety threats to humans, the new discovery could also increase the transmission of disease at a terrifying rate.
Vampire bats are notorious for carrying the dreaded rabies disease, which often cause outbreaks in Brazil.
Just last year, 12 children were recorded to have died in Brazil due to attacks from rabid blood-sucking bats, while two children also perished in Peru after dying from infection due to bat bites. Khristian Ibarrola
